Category: skills

When I used to write about yoga for a local magazine, the numbers of Americans practicing yoga was about 20 million. Today, about 6 years later, that number has nearly doubled, edging up towards to 40 million. Globally, the estimate is about 300 million and the number of over 50s practicing yoga has tripled over the last four years.

People often wonder what this thing called yoga actually is. Difficult to answer in just a sentence but to me YOGA is the exploration, awareness, and response that informs how I (might best) relate to the world inside myself and to the larger world around me.

A large part of this doesn’t involve the physical yoga postures or asana practice, but that’s usually where people begin. It is a good way into the wider exploration. Most, practice on a mat and typically in a group class. Certainly, it’s where I began.

Not knowing anything about yoga when starting out, I first practiced Ashtanga yoga and then when I began teaching it was a somewhat modified Vinyasa practice. Both involve strong, physical, almost gymnastic-like movements linked with the breath. Ashtanga, in particular, is meant to be practiced for 1.5hrs each day, 6 days of the week.

My practice today no longer resembles this in the least. Today, my physical yoga practice is interweaved throughout the day, with broader concepts in the background.

Most often it does not take place on my mat.

Most often it is less than 30 minutes at a time.

Most often it’s a response to whatever I feel might best serve me, at any given time.

No special place, clothing, or time.

Which I think might be a helpful way to practice for many who don’t have the time, money, or perhaps ability to get to a studio or gym.

What does this practice look like?

Join me over the next few months and we’ll look at little snippets of yoga, movement, breath practices that can be done in a couple of minutes or combined to make your own personal practice. On your own time, in your own space, that fits into whatever your life demands of you.

Most important to me is to teach people what they can do for themselves. Provide agency. The ability for you to have the tools and the freedom to make choices that enhance your wellbeing and your life.

In October we’ll focus on the feet.

November will be all about the shoulder joint.

In December, we’ll get into the hip joint.

I’ve chosen these particular areas to focus on as they tend to be where problems, pains, issues show up for most people I talk and work with.

Summer has officially begun and soon many will be on their long-anticipated holidays. Most likely, it will involve some travel. And at some point the dreaded ‘are we there yet?’ You might think it to yourself or maybe your little travel companions repeat the phrase. On the hour. Time seems to drag. on. forever.

Why is it we dread the getting to, and coming back from, our trips?

Sure there can be unexpected delays or surprises that inevitably happen. But typically it’s the thought of sitting in our vehicle driving for 4, 8, or 12 hours to our destination. Or being crammed into the airplane for hours on end. Uncomfortable, to be sure. Not only being seated for so long but also waiting to eat on someone else’s schedule or getting to the bathroom when the need arises.

Most of us sit, for hours, all day long. Why then, does it feel different or more noticeable when we’re traveling? In an airplane, it’s not so easy to move around, to shift in our seats, when discomfort arises. In our cars, perhaps it’s a little easier with more room and not so many eyes watching us.

On most any day, we tend to listen to the hunger and thirst signals our body sends us, while other ‘discomforts’ such as simply moving, tend to be ignored. Why do we respond to some and not to others?

Being flexible ain’t all it’s cracked up to be

I’ve written about this before, here. But I think it’s important to talk about again.

People associate yoga with flexibility.

I do associate the word flexibility with yoga, but it’s in how we apply flexibility to our life.

That is, we have lots of choices available to us.

People often get stuck and then their choices become smaller, and smaller, and smaller… until they feel something a little like this; boxed in.

What I’m really looking for is this:

Freedom.

Do you have freedom, to do what you want in your life?

Do you have the freedom to BE you?

Skills that may aid in this might be strength. Physical strength if you want to move around in the world. Be able to go jogging, walking, cycling. Even to simply pick up and play with your kids/grandkids.

Maybe you are an office worker or writer and need to sit a lot of the day. What skills might be useful to do that?

A skill may be the ability to voice your opinions at work?

Or the skills required to get a good night’s sleep, so you have the energy for the coming day.

A useful skill may be noticing what creates tension in your body.

Try sitting in a dentist chair for any length of time and notice how you feel? A sore jaw, perhaps, makes sense. But what might your shoulders feel like? Or your leg muscles? Imagine doing this, unknowingly creating tension throughout the day, and what it might create? Pain, fatigue, stiff or sore muscles.

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